News :: 15MR: Icon Constructor
Hello all and welcome back to 15-Minute Reviews! Today’s application is Icon Constructor by IconConstructor.com—an application to assist you make .ico file for Windows.
As Giveaway of the Day states:
“Icon Constructor converts images of any format into Windows icons. You can find many images on the Internet and convert them to icons for use on your Windows desktop, in applications and much more.
It supports Windows XP icons in 32-bit color depth with an alpha channel; now you can create semi-transparent XP icons easily. With just a few clicks, any image can be turned into an icon.
Assign eye-catching icons to individual Windows folders, making every folder different. The simple Icon Constructor interface makes it easy to change the look of an every folder.
GIF: 
PNG: 
Quick Pros
- Assists with building different types of icons; Windows, email, folder, AIM buddy, ICQ & web shortcut
- Frame extraction from movie files or flash files
- Great frames in place
- Expandable set of frames
- Great featureset
Quick Cons
- .ico files saved to a buried folder inside hidden folders
- No frame building information available
Expansion
While granted this is not a full-fledged icon builder like I would normally use, this application is surprisingly powerful and easy to use. This application has been built to make the process easy for those who have never built icons, but surprisingly powerful for those who are developing applications and don’t want to put in a lot of time converting an image to an icon.
There are a lot of hidden little features here and there; While there are a lot of features, sometimes they are hard to find (Took me a few to figure out how to save my mail icon as a GIF/PNG right inside the app; you have to change to ‘Windows Icon’ mode.) I’m not going to detail all the features; Touching on a few though; Sepia/B&W effects, alpha-channel working, sharpen, and much more.
My two quips for me is that when you do make an .ico file, it is buried all the way into your Documents & Settings folder, like it is assuming it is going to stay on your system. You have to set Windows to show hidden folders and then wade down quite a few folders to get to your .ico file. This is time-consuming; However, if you do plan on using this at all, I would recommend taking a shortcut of the folder that the .ico files are in and drop it into your Start menu group for ease of finding them again. My other quip is that there is no information available to make my own styles for use in this application, and the ? buttons do nothing except the top right one and that only brings up an About window with another non-functional Help button. I’d love to build a set of folder icons using this tool, but it appears it wouldn’t be easy to make my own template for the styles.
Final Verdict
I feel that anyone who wants to build their own icons that this is a great starting point. You do not have to use the styles either, which is a plus for sure. While granted it does not have the ability to paint your own icons, many people would likely not want to do this anyways and would rather take it from their own images. If you plan on doing any icon work, I would recommend getting this application for sure while it is free. As for $29.95, I would recommend giving it a try first before you buy. It is fairly steep cost, but if you’re making icons all the time, I would say go for it. If there was information on creating your own styles, I would say it is definitely worth the $29.95. I am sure there is probably information on how to make styles somewhere since there is an interface to add them, but I can’t seem to find them and with ? broken, can’t go that route either.
Discuss This
For all of you who have made it down to this point in my review, I am partially releasing my forums. If you’d like to discuss this application, or tell me where to find information on how to build the styles, head on over to the Forum Discussion Here
Hope you enjoy!
Posted by BladedThoth on Tuesday, February 27, 2007
